2011 January Daniel Fast and its' results

The New Testament was my story for the first month of this year. I found a reading plan that would guide me to read through the whole thing in twenty days. I gave myself twenty-one, so I had some grace. To make sure I was engaged as I read, I took notes all the way through. I wrote something for every chapter, but the further I got into the fast, the more I wrote. Bu revelation, I was writing a couple of words for almost every verse. An hour or so a day of reading became two or three. Or four.

I was loving it. Absolutely loving it. Every week I still prepared a message for Sunday as well. I had committed to the church to preach about prayer every week for the month, which I still did, but all I really wanted to preach was . . . the whole New Testament.

But sermons came easy for me in January. Very easy. When I did sit down to do my preparation, it just flowed out of me like tuning on a faucet. Every scripture I wrote into my notes was one I'd read only within the last two weeks.The scripture felt like a friend that I was introducing to my friends. And that's the other thing. The church. You guys. I fell in love with you in January, my friends.

The New Testament is a great romance. It is the story of a groom, Jesus Christ, and he's beautiful. So beautiful. No man on earth could compare in beauty and true, righteous power to this prince. It is the story of a bride. The bride is broken. The bride is oppressed. The bride is alone. It is the story of this bride being rescued, redeemed, loved, and married by this redeemer-prince. On a white horse. With a flaming sword. Seriously. It's in there.

And the bride is us. The church. She's so beautiful, and so loved. Somehow as I read, I felt that love of the groom and just wanted to share that love with this church. He says your beautiful. You really are.

But a father I still was. And a husband. Even with a few extra hours of reading and writing every day, I continued to feed my kids three or four times a day, prepare sermons, host church events, work at L'Arche, finish homework assignments, and try to squeeze some time in with Kate on top of it all. It wasn't working.

I knew it was right and good for me to be growing in my understanding and love of scripture. I am a pastor after all. But my priority is my family. If it isn't, something is seriously wrong.

Halfway through the fast, Kate and I sat down and made an assessment of my priorities and my time. Here's how the priority list looked, in order:

My Relationship with God and Spiritual Nourishment
My Relationship with Kate and Quality Time together
My Relationship with Elijah and Grace (my kids), and being a present father to them
Personal Time
Church and Ministry work

To do everything I need to do for the church, I need thirty-five to forty hours in a week. In truth, if I'm not working that much, I really am cheating you as well. But as this, my "job" is at the bottom of the list of top priorities, to have that time in the week, I needed to be far more vigilant with the rest of my time in order to make the space for it.

I committed to Kate that I would spend no less than an hour with Elijah and Grace every day, uninterrupted, and not counting when I was feeding them (feeding is another hour or three in the day). I committed to a full day just for family every week. I committed to spend no less than two hours with her every day, and that time only when the kids are sleeping. I committed to a date night every week. I committed to no less than an hour alone in scripture reading and prayer every day. I committed to one full day a week set aside for quiet and rest.

And after all of these time commitments that I was so sure were minimums when it came to truly being the type of husband and father I want to be, I realized that there just wasn't a tonne of time left for "other". Nope. I'm a husband. I'm a father. I'm a pastor. These are three roles of great love. I guess I'm a professional lover. And not much else.

And you know what? I love it. I absolutely love it. Why wouldn't I? Somehow I'm not missing the hour or two a week I used to spend wasted watching viral videos on youtube because I spend more time snuggling my wife or playing with my kids. Nope. Life is better now. It really is better this way. It's alive.

The other stuff I like to do, like activism and writing, these flow from the life giving time spent in prayer, reading, and time with my family. I'm writing three books this year. One is on the New Testament, an introduction for anarchists, which will flow easily from my personal study and church work. The other nonfiction work will be about community living, which will be drawn largely from my work with the church (we'll be doing a series this year on community), and of course life in the house. My third book is fiction, and will be drawn from my experiences as a Christian in an activist world.

And where does my time for activism come from? Well friends, I'm a dad, and every day spent reading the New Testament like I have been right now is growing my heart more and more like Jesus. I'm not interested in leaving this world the same way that I entered it. These kids are going to outlive me, and I intend to leave this world more just, more peaceful, more kind than it is now, to whatever degree I am able. Because I love them. Because I love Jesus. That pretty much fills the "other".

In Paul's letter to Timothy, he writes that a pastor does not have time for "civilian affairs". Now, I am a bit of a hippy, and still am a little cautious when it comes to militaristic analogies. But I get this. A lot of "extra stuff" has died in me in the last few weeks. And I really don't miss it. My purpose is Jesus. My purpose is love. I am a servant.